This invention relates to a system and method for supervising people with mental disorders, and in particular, to a system and method of applying tracking and look-up methods for supervising the actions and conditions of people with mental illness and disabilities.
People with mental illnesses, such as Alzheimer""s Disease, depression, mental retardation and substance dependency often require supervision, typically performed by a guardian. Supervision is necessary for monitoring the actions and behaviors of the mentally ill person to aid them in functioning in and out of the home, to monitor their medicinal intake and to guard them from danger. Due to memory loss, disorientation and/or subaverage intellectual functioning, mentally ill people frequently have difficulty with self care, traveling to familiar or unfamiliar locations, and with occupational or recreational activities. In certain cases a mentally ill person may pose a danger to himself and others. Supervision of a mentally ill person, in varying degrees, is necessary for providing the person with a source of advice, a source of information, monitoring of his actions and behaviors, monitoring of the condition of the person, monitoring of the medicinal intake of the person, monitoring of compliance with supplied directions, diffusing problematic situations and detecting dangerous situations.
Typically, the need for full time supervision of a mentally ill person is fulfilled at home by a family member, detracting from the family member""s ability to fulfill their other responsibilities, or by a hired aide, creating a financial burden. Alternatively, supervision is provided by placing the mentally ill person in an institution, thus limiting the freedom of the mentally ill person and incurring great cost to the person""s family or the government.
Furthermore, mentally ill persons who have been released from a care-giving facility in order to return to normal activities, require supervision of proper medicinal intake for preventing a return of symptoms. By providing limited supervision of a functioning person with a mental illness, a recurrence of symptom presentation can be avoided.
There are cases in which a mental illness is suspected, or is confirmed and possibly progressing. By examining the activities of persons functioning at various levels the existence or progression of an illness can be monitored. Upon determination of a progression of an illness, proper intervention by medical professionals can be provided. Thus, further progression is prevented by providing the proper medications at appropriate doses.
In addition, individuals with medical issues and/or their caretakers find it cumbersome to follow a regimented schedule of medications, blood testing, urine testing, required feedings, etc., while attempting to maintain normal activities. Supervision of a schedule, including reminders, can provide the support needed for proper maintenance medical care.
There exists a need for a system and method for providing various levels of supervision of a mentally ill person. There further exists a need for a centralized system for providing supervision of a plurality of mentally ill persons at the same or at different locations.
It is an aspect of this invention to provide a system and a method for supervising a mentally ill person.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a system and a method for recognizing events, which pose a danger to a mentally ill person.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a system and a method for providing assistance to a mentally ill person.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a system and a method for monitoring progression of a mental illness.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a centralized system for providing supervision of a plurality of mentally ill persons at the same or at different locations.
To accomplish the above and other aspects, a method is proposed for supervising a person with a mental illness, which, in the preferred embodiment comprises the steps of acquiring sensor data related to the person and the person""s environment; tracking the acquired sensor data; and recognizing changes in the sensor data indicating the occurrence of an event. The method further comprises acquiring access to an event database of stored event data entries, each event data entry comprising identification of one of the sensor means, identification of the entity being sensed by the sensor means, and allowable values for the sensor data and recommendations for assistance providing actions to be taken when the received sensor data is out of range from the allowable sensor data; and recognizing the occurrence of an incident in which the received sensor data is outside of the range of the stored allowable sensor data values. The method further comprises the steps of receiving requests for information related to recognized events; processing the requests; and retrieving the requested information from the event database and outputting the retrieved information. The method further comprises the steps of retrieving a stored recommendation upon recognition of the occurrence of an incident and providing the assistance recommended to a user interface. The method further comprises the step of tracking the progression of the disease of the individual.
In addition, a system is proposed for supervising a person with a mental illness, which, in the preferred embodiment, comprises sensor means for sensing physical entities relating to the person and the person""s environment, the sensor means outputting sensor data; a user interface receiving sensor data and user requests; and a Supervision Provider Server in communication with the user interface. The Supervision Provider Server comprises an event data base for storing event data, wherein each event data entry comprises an identification of one of the sensor means, identification of the entity being sensed by the sensor means, allowable values for the sensor data and recommendations for cases in which sensor data is outside of the range of the allowable values. The Supervision Provider Server further comprises means for tracking the sensor data; means for recognizing a change in the sensor data indicating the occurrence of an event; means for recognizing the occurrence of an incident in which the sensor data is outside of the range of the stored allowable values; means for retrieving the stored recommendations upon the occurrence of an event; and means for providing assistance recommended in the recommendations to the user interface. The Supervision Provider Server further comprises means for processing requests for information related to recognized events and means for retrieving the requested information from the event database.